Top cop says crash high­lights dan­ger

The UAE’s top traf­fic cop has re­it­er­ated his call to ban the use of minibuses to trans­port peo­ple fol­low­ing a crash that left seven dead and 13 others in­jured.

Gen­eral Mo­hammed Saif Al Zafeen, head of the Fed­eral Traf­fic Coun­cil, has asked the Min­istry of In­te­rior to give the green light to a rec­om­men­da­tion by the coun­cil that would mean the ve­hi­cles could only be used to carry goods.

“Minibuses are a dan­ger­ous way to trans­port work­ers,” he told 7DAYS yes­ter­day. “They must be banned as any ac­ci­dent in­volv­ing them can re­sult in many deaths, just like Tues­day’s ac­ci­dent. They are like sar­dine cans.”

Al Zafeen added: “The au­thor­ity needs to do some­thing with minibuses in or­der to lower the num­ber of deaths on the roads.”

Tues­day’s crash took place about 8am near Al Mak­toum In­ter­na­tional Air­port on Emi­rates Road in the direction of Abu Dhabi.

The minibus was car­ry­ing 20 peo­ple. The driver was among those killed.

The crash is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, how­ever po­lice said ini­tial en­quiries show the By Ali Al Shouk minibus col­lided with a lorry that had stopped in the mid­dle of the car­riage­way af­ter a mi­nor ac­ci­dent with an­other ve­hi­cle. The lorry was car­ry­ing 70 tonnes of rub­ble.

The ve­hi­cles stopped in the third lane and the minibus driver, who po­lice be­lieve was not paying at­ten­tion to the road, crashed into the rear of the sta­tion­ary lorry.

A num­ber of the oc­cu­pants were trapped in the wreck­age of the bus and po­lice used hy­draulic tools to free them.

Those in­jured in the ac­ci­dent were taken to Rashid Hos­pi­tal in Dubai.

“Bus driv­ers must be ex­tra care­ful when they are driv­ing on high­ways. The driver didn’t no­tice the lorry and crashed into it at high speed,” said Gen­eral Saif Muhair Al Mazroui, di­rec­tor of Dubai Traf­fic Po­lice.

Traf­fic Pros­e­cu­tion is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ac­ci­dent and will ques­tion wit­nesses.

FA­TAL: The wreck­age of the minibus that crashed this week on Emi­rates Road in Dubai